Wizard: I Can Refine Everything

The land of the goblin world was not considered vast, at least not compared to the small worlds Richard had seen before. In the map of the goblin world, a significant portion of the land consisted of islands, both large and small.

These islands were not uniformly distributed, with most of them located on the side controlled by the Mechanical Court. In contrast, the neighboring territory of the Blood and Flesh Court almost formed a complete piece of land.

It took Richard two days to fly from the Mechanical Court to the Blood and Flesh Court.

Unlike the Mechanical Court, which was dotted with factories everywhere, the factories in the Blood and Flesh Court, although numerous, did not reach the extreme level of the Mechanical Court. However, this did not mean the Blood and Flesh Court was normal.

Richard, while invisible, arrived above a city, which was not large and according to his rough estimate, was home to just hundreds of thousands of goblins.

Yet, this small city housed as many as a dozen transformation hospitals and that didn't even include the smaller clinics.

Among these hundreds of thousands of goblins, not one had avoided undergoing biomechanical transmutations, as far as Richard could tell, there were no unmodified goblins.

The modifications among these goblins ranged from basic limb strengthening to organ modifications, such as eye enhancements, to full body transformation, completely changing their appearances to hardly resemble goblins anymore. The variety was staggering and encompassing all possibilities.

Richard wondered whether it was the advancement in transformation medicine that led to the widespread transmutations, or vice versa. But he was certain of one thing, this was not a good phenomenon.

Physical changes had a huge impact on one's spirit. In the Mechanical Court, the Artificial Knights and Artificial Body Priests did not treat the lower-class workers as people, showing absolutely no empathy towards their own kind, due to their excessive modifications.

Enhanced senses and cold artificial bodies prevented them from empathizing with their unmodified kin—at the moment of full body transformation, they essentially became a different race.

If adding artificial components could cause such a change, one could only imagine what direct flesh modifications would do.

Even if mechanical limb feedback was realistic, it certainly could never match the authenticity of flesh feedback. However, this lack of realism could help goblins maintain their sanity as goblins.

But when the artificial limbs were replaced with flesh, this sense of unrealism vanished.

Goblins could easily be changed by their new bodies, altering everything from habits to personality compared to before their transformations.

In severe cases, these modifications could cause goblins to lose their self-awareness as goblins and start seeing their own kind as alien.

However, at present, it hadn't reached that extreme among these goblins. Most of them underwent body modifications to cope with work-related demands in their lives.

Those who opted for more extensive physique modifications were typically wealthy youths.

After landing, Richard strolled through the city to confirm that the working conditions in the Blood and Flesh Court were consistent with those in the Mechanical Court. He then picked up a map planning to leave.

Evangelizing wasn't urgent at the moment, as his main purpose this trip was to investigate the Abyss Sect and the mythical Divine Palace.

According to the map, the highest peak in the goblin world, Golden Summit, was located in the northern part of the Blood and Flesh Court. From the city where he was, it would be a two-thousand-kilometer flight north.

"Not too far," Richard muttered while looking at the map.

"Before I head there, though, might as well take care of these little pests first."

Richard pocketed the map and shifted his gaze toward a nearby structure—or rather, a group of buildings.

There stood a block of cheap apartments that, to Richard's senses, seemed to be constructed of steel and concrete but were, in fact, filled with flesh, almost like a demon's womb.

"Is this the power of the Abyss Demon?" Richard mused, his figure flashing to the entrance of the apartment building.

It wasn't that he didn't want to barge in. He discovered that this flesh-disguised building had the ability to isolate space.

He could not use Shadow Shuttling to enter.

There were no guards at the front door of the apartment, only two savage-looking giant dogs with bulging muscles as though they were small bulls. They bared their shiny, sharp teeth, from which foul-smelling saliva dripped down, forming tiny holes on the cement ground as it sizzled upon contact—its corrosive saliva had eroded the surface.

As Richard appeared in front of the apartment, the two giant dogs were about to pounce. But before they could move, a soul-deep terror made them collapse weakly onto the ground.

Casting a glance at the hunting dogs, a hint of surprise flickered in Richard's eyes.

"To think the Abyss Sect has placed two second-level creatures as guards; they really do put on quite a show."

Entering the apartment complex, Richard immediately sensed an extremely corrupt Qi. He could feel that this air must contain a large number of what Ulysses referred to as Abyss Spores.

Abyss Spores, the lowest form of life in the Abyss biome. After growing, these spores would transform into the primary producers of the Abyss biome—the Abyss Moss.

However, despite being at the bottom of the biome, the entire Abyss biome was essentially built on these tiny spores.

The Abyss Erosion of environments was entirely based on these Abyss Spores.

"Yet, these Abyss Spores seem quite weak," Richard observed using his spiritual power, noting the spores' half-dead vitality, starkly different from how Ulysses had described them.

In Ulysses' description, Abyss spores were just like yeast, able to grow on anything they contacted. If ordinary people didn't treat them with holy water, inhaling even a single spore could lead to parasitic infestation and transform them into Abyss corpses.

But the spores before him now were hardly capable of transforming people into corpses, Richard seriously doubted they could even grow in the lungs.

Life energy was too weak.

Inside the building, large swathes of flesh covered the walls. Daubs of graffiti intermingled with purple-red blood vessels conveyed an indescribable sense of eeriness.

Tap tap!

With a nimble sideslip, Richard dodged the drool falling from above. The deeper he went into the building, the more pronounced the fleshy transformation of the architecture became. By the floor Richard now reached, walls were no longer visible; the long corridors resembled the intestines of a giant beast.

"Trying to digest me?"

Richard looked at the potent digestive fluid falling like raindrops from above and calmly raised his magic barrier.

However, the digestive fluid was just the beginning.

As the fluid appeared, the fleshy walls around Richard began to contract. From the smooth flesh walls, numerous bone-spiked tentacles started to extend, lashing against Richard's magic barrier like whips.

Unfortunately, these whips strong enough to tear through steel couldn't even stir a ripple on Richard's composite magic barrier.

With a casual wave of his hand, a gust of fiery red wind evaporated the digestive fluids. Under the fury of the Fire Element, the surrounding flesh walls turned scorched black, and those flailing flesh tentacles were burned into char.

"That looks much better," Richard said lightly.

Following the flesh corridor downward, Richard soon encountered a creature that might be an Abyss Demon.

In front of Richard, at the end of the flesh corridor, stood a humanoid creature with horns, blood-red skin, and its arms and body covered in large amounts of bone armor and spikes, eyeing him warily.

More precisely, its gaze could almost be described as fearful.

"Who are you?"

Richard didn't respond, but instead reached out his hand, and a massive Magic Hand appeared out of thin air, firmly grasping the Abyss Demon in its palm.

Caught off guard by the attack, the Abyss Demon immediately began to struggle after being trapped in the Magic Hand.

Its body involuntarily began to elongate, with more bone spurs and plates growing from within. Its muscles bulged, and a pair of huge wings sprouted from its back.

In just a few seconds, the Abyss Demon had swollen from over two meters tall to nearly five meters, with a body as robust as a giant's.

"Roar!"

The Abyss Demon let out a ferocious roar and its body shook violently, trying to break free from the grasp of the Magic Hand. But the Magic Hand wasn't a real hand; it was a force field. Being trapped in the Magic Hand wasn't like being bound by iron rings; it was more like being stuck in a swamp, where escaping through sheer brute strength was nearly impossible.

After the Abyss Demon's outburst, the undamaged energy structure of the Magic Hand wrapped around the Abyss Demon like a swamp.

Its mighty strength was as ineffective as trying to cut water with a blade in the Magic Hand.

"A bit too weak."

Richard frowned slightly as he watched the Abyss Demon unable to escape.

The magic hand he used was just a basic Magic Hand, potent only because Richard's spiritual power was strong enough to manipulate a substantial amount of magic power.

But even so, this method was only suitable for bullying third-level native creatures. A three-level creature from a civilized background could easily break free from this hand.

However, Richard suddenly remembered that Ulysses had once mentioned that Abyss Demons had the ability to transform other races into Abyss Demons. Presumably, this creature was one of those transformed Abyss Demons.

"That's perfect, just right for a specimen."

Rune Chains flew out from Richard's body, coalescing into a layer of icy blue on the surface of the Abyss Demon. Under the cover of ice, the Abyss Demon's struggle gradually weakened until it turned into an ice sculpture, and Richard threw it into the Secret Realm.

As he ventured deeper, Richard faced several attacks. For instance, the surrounding walls suddenly sprouted sharp teeth like those of a lamprey, trying to grind him into pieces. Or releasing a large amount of deadly smoke in the air, attempting to poison Richard to death. Eventually, the Abyss Lair simply sealed off the path, denying Richard access to its core chamber.

But unfortunately, all these efforts were in vain.

The blood-red flesh walls suddenly turned black and turned into char, followed by blinding flames bursting from behind the walls.

Richard, maintaining his magic barrier, walked out of the charred corridor, looking around with interest.

He was now at the core chamber of the Abyss Lair. In front of him, a purple-red tumor, over a meter high and connected to many thick blood vessels, was quivering.

Looking at this tumor, Richard's body unexpectedly experienced a slight thrill.

"Oh, the Life Rule!?"